A Wounded Spitzer Moves to Rebuild His Image

By PATRICK HEALY

Published: July 29, 2007

Eliot Spitzer was at a loss for words.

The governor's senior staff had gathered at short notice on Monday morning in Albany, and a grave Mr. Spitzer was addressing them. All their hard work for the last seven months was about to be subsumed by scandal, he said, according to several people present. A trusted aide was being suspended over a dirty-tricks operation. Ethics was supposed to be the gold standard, not the black eye, of a Spitzer administration.

''This is what we stand for,'' Mr. Spitzer began, and then stopped. Aides in the room recalled that he seemed to choke up as he had to remind them, and himself, about a core principle he had hoped would define his tenure.

In conversations with allies and friends this week, as he has grappled with his aides' misuse of the State Police to try to tarnish a political opponent, Mr. Spitzer has expressed regret and frustration. He knows that he has alienated people with his steamroller style and needs a plan to win them back. Yet he has also told friends that he will not allow the scandal to straitjacket him.

At the same time, friends say, he has acknowledged that perhaps his fighting spirit helped create an atmosphere in which his aides may feel comfortable pushing the line (and, in this instance, crossing it).

Hovering over everything appears a cloud of self-doubt for this most self-assured man: How much does Eliot Spitzer need to change? And how much can he?

''His overwhelming feeling is to take this responsibility on his own shoulders,'' said Lloyd Constantine, Mr. Spitzer's mentor and a senior adviser. ''On a personal level, not a legal level, he's feeling mea culpa. People have urged him to fight back and defend himself, but his view is, 'No, we have to heal ourselves first.' He's taking it very hard.''

Aides to Mr. Spitzer, a Democrat, say that as he moves to rebuild his image and relationships, he will take some of the bluster and confrontation out of his day-to-day language and the statements made by his office. There will be more talk of cooperation with Republicans, with the Legislature.

Of course, New York has been here before with Mr. Spitzer. In 2005, when he was attorney general, he declared ''war'' on an ally of Gov. George E. Pataki during a telephone conversation; afterward, he said he regretted his word choices and flashes of temper. But the harsh language did not fade for long.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Spitzer said he still planned to campaign for Democratic legislative candidates -- a long-standing point of contention with his Republican critics.

Pete Grannis, Mr. Spitzer's commissioner of environmental conservation, said that ''it would be impossible for this governor to defang himself,'' given his nature. Still, he added, there is now a need for Mr. Spitzer to re-evaluate his style.

''He knows he needs friends and more friends -- you can't govern this state without people beside you,'' Mr. Grannis said. ''I think the entire administration is going to have to figure out how to govern a little better.''

Mr. Spitzer himself appears clear-eyed about the implications of the scandal. In the interview, he conceded that he had lost political capital, and that his reputation for steely adherence to ethics had been damaged. He also acknowledged elevating the target of the State Police operation, Joseph L. Bruno, the Senate Republican leader, to the status of an obstacle in the eyes of his staff.

Still, he said he would not speculate publicly on whether he had fostered a taste for combat in his office that led some of his aides, according to the investigation by the attorney general, to use the State Police to gather records on Mr. Bruno's taxpayer-financed travel in hopes of weakening him as an opponent.

''This is going to be seen -- and I understand it very clearly -- it is going to be seen as more than a blemish,'' Mr. Spitzer said in the interview, conducted in his Manhattan office. ''My feeling is real loss, both substantively and from a perception perspective, about what we're trying to do. The perception matters, not just because I'm worried about what's the public perception of me, but because the perception about what we're doing affects our capacity to do it.

''I'm going to work extraordinarily hard to rebuild that and say to myself, 'You're now back at a point where you've given away, through a self-inflicted wound, the upside of the capital that you've accumulated by doing many good things,' '' Mr. Spitzer said.

The governor is preparing himself for a possible onslaught of scrutiny. The State Ethics Commission is reviewing the attorney general's report, and the Senate plans to hold hearings.

None of Mr. Spitzer's friends say he is self-pitying; they say he still sees his future as bright, be it running for re-election in 2010 or possibly for president after that. But they say this is a personally challenging moment for a man trained to look at facts and problems with a lawyer's eye. He is now dealing with betrayal and controversy, accusations of lying and arrogance, and questions swirling around him: ''What did you know and when did you know it?''